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YOU'D THINK THE U.S. GOVERNMENT WOULD CALL off National Homeownership Month this year. With hundreds of thousands of homes heading to the sheriff's auction block, with the exposure of real risks in Triple-A-ratings for mortgage-backed securities, with the discovery of fraud in documents known as "liar loans," it's time to take a break.

Or not. President Bush issued his usual proclamation making June National Homeownership Month, dedicated as usual to the extension of homeownership to every American with a pulse or a FICO credit score. Both houses of Congress concurred.

More tangibly, the Senate is debating a bill to hand off the mortgage hot potato to the Federal Housing Administration. FHA is supposed to insure $300 billion in new loans for desperate borrowers, especially those who could not have qualified for FHA loans under existing laws and rules.

Driven from the clutches of bankers whose greed no longer exceeds their prudence, some of the least-creditworthy borrowers in the country now will get a big hug from the FHA. The borrowers will get a reduced balance, a lower rate and FHA insurance.

The House of Representatives has passed similar legislation. The White House is threatening a veto, but President Bush really is just haggling about the price.

While struggling to maintain solvency for the FHA, Commissioner Brian Montgomery also has managed to shine a spotlight on a sleazy charity scam that is costing the FHA billions in projected losses.

More than a million low-income homebuyers have used so-called charitable down-payment assistance to avoid making down payments from their own wallets, even the minimal 3% down payments required for FHA-insured loans.

As if to prove that charity begins at home, builders and bankers have been funding down payments for their customers by making tax-deductible gifts to tame foundations, such as Nehemiah Corp. and AmeriDream Inc., who then pass the dough on to the homebuyers, who then pass it back to the builders and bankers in purchase prices and finance fees. As the money circles around, the donors even may receive a tax deduction for their self-interested generosity (however, the IRS has rejected charitable status for 31 down-payment-gift outfits).

Although one-third of FHA's recent business is written with charitable down payments, Montgomery would like to end the practice. Such mortgages go to foreclosure three times as frequently as those where the buyer puts down his own money. But the House version of the new housing legislation, sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), would continue it. The senate sponsor, Sen. Chris Dodd (D.-Conn.), is also sympathetic, but the Senate bill does not yet continue it. Final decisions will come in conference committee.

Dodd and Frank are also adding a new program that will further open the mortgage door to unqualified borrowers. First-time homebuyers would receive a refundable tax credit of 10% of the value of a home, up to $8,000, on purchases of unoccupied housing. In this context, "refundable" means they can have the cash in hand even if they don't owe taxes.

Making no down payment for a home and getting back $8,000 cash is too good to be true. But hey: It's National Home-Ownership Month.

The High Price of Politics

EVEN IF BARACK OBAMA DOES NOTHING ELSE to improve American politics this year, he can be praised for helping to tear down the reputation of public financing for election campaigns.

In rejecting public money for his general-election campaign, Sen. Obama (D.-Ill.) joins George W. Bush as a pace-setter. In 2000, Bush was the first candidate since the mid-1970s to raise all his own money for his pursuit of a party nomination. Bush was denounced by dozens of activists, maybe even thousands, but voters showed no interest. In 2004, both Bush and Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.) raised their own money for the preconvention season.

Money has always been the mother's milk of politics. The only presidents who needed no money to be elected were George Washington and James Monroe. They had no opposition. Even as they enjoyed wide popular support, however, lower-ranking politicians were buying voters, indirectly and directly. Nearly every participant in an election before 1975 would have been selected for a jail cell under post-Watergate rules.

In the modern era, politicians buy votes with pork after they get into office. In their election campaigns, they sell themselves, to high and low bidders alike.

Obama's success at the state caucuses and primaries largely has been achieved by selling himself at retail. He has raised $287 million, two-thirds of it in donations of less than $1,000. His handlers expect to raise another $300 million for the fall campaign.

Whether this retail success is due more to the quality of the product or to Internet-savvy marketing of the product is harder to discern. Maybe that's why we still have elections, rather than efficiently auctioning off the White House to the highest bidder.

When the cash settles next year, reformers will be asking the new president and Congress to try again to choke off political money. They will call for more generous public financing and tighter regulation of political spending.

Would-Be President John McCain (R.-Ariz.) has been a leader in the movement to scrub money from politics, and he apparently will take $84 million of public financing for the general election this year -- more out of desperation than desire. If McCain should be elected despite lagging in lucre, he may learn something that Would-Be President Obama already seems to know:

Political spending is speech and it should not be regulated or limited.